Turpentine is a new two-act play by Australian playwright Tommy James Green: a Victorian Gothic five-hander that dives headfirst into the dark heart of humanity as two spoilt aristocrats attempt to reanimate their young successor with the help of a mad doctor and a mystic, set over the course of a single night in the doctor’s cellar-come-laboratory. This “macabre”, “madcap” new play is the monstrous love child of Mary Shelley and Mr Hyde, crackling with Wildean wit as it probes in the dark at questions of loss, guilt and the desperate human desire to reverse the irreversible.
Cut throats and fever ravage the streets of Clerkenwell in the winter of 1887. One bedridden victim, seven-year-old Tiberius Milton, dies in the dead of night and is smuggled urgently to the door of Doctor Raymond Crow by his mother Cynthia and Uncle Percy. This gin-soaked surgeon and the electrifying mechanisms hidden in the cellar beneath his barbershop are their best chance at bringing the boy back before the rot sets in and the servants start to talk. However, Crow - their childhood physician - is haunted by terrible crimes and soon worse than ghosts join the Miltons in the maddening gloom.
Katherine Hopwood Poulsen (Terminus, Marrickville Town Hall 2023) directs Turpentine’s world debut at Flight Path Theatre in 2025, playing from February 20th – March 1st.
“Terrific… bold mythic storytelling with a dangerous modern edge.”
Damien Ryan - Actor/Director/Playwright (Sport For Jove)
“Madcap, distinctive, with plenty of laughs”
Simon Nye - Playwright/Screenwriter (The Crown Jewels, The Durrells)
“It is a stunning read, compelling, shocking… and excellently witty period piece.”
Holly Lyons - Screenwriter, Crossroads, Home & Away
“(Turpentine is) a hauntingly beautiful exploration of the human condition … (it) balances the macabre with dark humour… compelling, horrifying… a testament to the power of theatre.”
Sophia Hadef - Podcast Host (The French Reader)
Cast:
Megan Elizabeth Kennedy, Cris Bocchi, Freddy Hellier, Othniel Mani & Charlies Griffin
Creatives:
Director/Intimacy - Katherine Hopwood Poulsen
Playwriter/Producer - Tommy James Green
Producer - Miriam Rihani
Set & Costume Design - Alex Baumann, James Shepherd
Lighting & Sound Design - Kyle Stevens
Marketing/Graphics - Othniel Mani
Associate Producer - Isaac Downey
Assistant Director/Stage Manager - Nishka Sumanth
Photographer/Videographer - Jack Aliwood
Sound & Lighting Operator - Oliver Hurt